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The Little Church: 1901

New York circa 1901. "The Little Church Around the Corner (Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration, East 29th Street)." This Neo-Gothic confection, whipped up in 1849 and frosted with various architectural embellishments over the next 60 years, still stands as a sort of English country garden urban oasis. 8x10 inch glass negative, Detroit Photographic Company. View full size.

New York circa 1901. "The Little Church Around the Corner (Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration, East 29th Street)." This Neo-Gothic confection, whipped up in 1849 and frosted with various architectural embellishments over the next 60 years, still stands as a sort of English country garden urban oasis. 8x10 inch glass negative, Detroit Photographic Company. View full size.

 

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Was once a minor tourtist attraction

The church was well known in the 1940s and 1950s for hosting weddings of movie stars and stage actors. The church was welcoming to such people when other Episcopalian churches in the area were not, as mentioned in the first comment and also here: https://louisebrookssociety.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-actors-church-littl...

There is a black and white "come visit NYC" promotional video on Youtube, where the family sits in the backyard and plans their trip with a travel agent: dad wants to see Wall Street, mom wants to go shopping, junior wants to see the Yankees, and sister wants to visit this church. There's a brief clip of some then-famous person's wedding party leaving the church, and some exposition of why everyone knows about the place. I think that sister hopes to get married there some day, too.

But I can't find a link to the video. Oh well.

Deja vu

Have I been here before? No, but the familiar feeling was its similarity to the church and yard in the film Going My Way. I remembered Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald as priests, trying to help inhabitants of a poverty stricken city with no money of their own. Enjoyable movie with Bing's vocals and top character actors if you get a chance to see it.

Memories

This was my favorite block to go down as I walked from Penn Station to my office at B'way and 26th between 1990 and 2001. It was (and still is) a little slice of peace in the middle of chaos. How it supposedly got its nickname.

Shockingly, a well preserved area

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